Play It as It Lays

I loved the writing style, it was an easy read

Didion is a genius... play it as it lays is good how boxers are good, one, two hits, it's poison or sedatives(what does it matter) slowly dripping into your IV bag.

everyone seems to love this book and i just don't.... get it.

i love a good “no plot, just vibes” type of book. but not like this. you have to give SOMETHING. whether that's captivating character studies, lyrical writing, fascinating subject matter, or LITERALLY anything that this did not have.
for me, this needed more to balance out the fact that it is just people talking about nothing, and believe me they don't stop talking. back to back to back “he said”, “she said”, “they said”, “the woman said”, “the man said”, “Maria said”, “Carter said”, “Helene said”, “BZ said”, “Jeanelle said”, “Ivan Costello said”, “Freddy Chaikin said”, “Susannah Wood said”, “the boy at the gate to the bathhouse said”. like OKAY can we please switch it up maybe just once to give a little variety so I don't fall asleep for the 3rd day in a row while trying to read???????? the characters were insufferable and lacked dimension, and the writing was boring and frankly hard to follow because of the lack of nuance and the NAME DROPPING of like thousands of random people. this book is tired. idk how else to explain it.

all of that being said, I will probably read Didion's nonfiction works since I have heard great things and maybe her fiction just isn't my thing.

Absolutely haunting prose. I couldn't put this down in the best and worst of ways. Make sure to read this in a good headspace; it's devastating.

This book has the same vibes as The Bell Jar and I absolutely love a protagonist with questionable and dwindling sanity. Maria is such a fantastic example of an “unlikeable” character (which I don't get, I loved her) and the spiral her life takes absolutely drew me in. I see why this is a classic and it definitely stands the test of time.

3.5 / 5

I just didn't get it
I switched to audiobook half way through and managed to find myself in the story then, which was awesome

But do not fear I will persevere with Joan. Bring on a year of magical thinking

Didion is so successfully unsentimental. A sharp observer of humans and culture, precise and terrifying in her insight. Play it as it Lays is a book in the mind of a depressed, listless woman aimlessly floating in what Didion observes as the Californian decadence of the 60s, though the book never gives any such clear cut terms as clues. It's a bored but functioning nihilistic crowd that thinks it's seen everything and has money and nothing else to do. It's striking how she captures what it's like to live without meaning, maybe due to too much freedom of choice. It also feels like a lot of her personal fears jump out of the pages. A very dark, pessimistic mind without hope, so perfectly captured. But which still often feels the melancholia of being barely alive. “I know what nothing means, and I keep on playing.” The tiny 1.5 to 2 page chapters' format makes it irresistible and hard to put down.